CHAPTER THIRTEEN
This was incredible.
Impossible.
Completely unbelievable.
They’d ended somehow on the mattress, although it no longer rested on the bed platform. The footboard had split. Wooden chunks and splinters littered the floor. It wasn’t uncomfortable, however. Her mattress was large. Firm. Cushiony. Support wasn’t much of a comfort issue.
Eska was atop him. Her arms wrapped about his waist. Her head nestled on his shoulder. Tangled locks of her hair spread about them, as if attempting to entwine them together. It spilled over his sides, brushed his skin if he shifted at all. That wasn’t uncomfortable, either.
Her weight was a negligible factor...yet ponderously weighty at the same time. Their hearts no longer raced, but sent a steady march of thumps. They were still beating as one. Their breathing had calmed, too, and had the same cadence. It always matched, even when he experimented by holding a breath. Paul Henry lifted a lock of her hair before smoothing his hand down her back. His heart contracted almost painfully. He’d never felt anything like this.
It felt—
Oh, shit. Hellfire. And damnation.
Paul Henry jerked his mind to a halt. Snatched any thought of emotion from consideration. Mentally shoved it into a compartment. Slammed the lid on it. If he could, he’d have hammered it shut. This was totally unlike him. He didn’t deal in feelings. They were for the weak. Powerless. Cowardly. And they usually covered up failure.
Paul Henry Beethan wasn’t weak. Or cowardly.
And he didn’t fail.
The word wasn’t even in his vocabulary.
There were reasons he was like this. His upbringing was just a part of it. He’d figured it out for himself years ago. Nobody had a set future in this world. Success depended on an individual, not their chance placement at birth. He’d been called driven. That was true. His life was a series of goals he set for himself, some of them seemingly impossible. But he’d always managed to achieve them. Enjoy a measure of satisfaction that followed. Move onto the next goal.
That’s what he was used to.
Not this...
This...
He wasn’t even sure how to describe it. Failure tasted like an insipid dish. Resembled downing a glass of tepid water. Had the consistency of pudding. It wasn’t repulsive. Or disagreeable. It was just bland. Nothing of import. He didn’t even want to ponder it. But that didn’t change the facts.
He’d just failed.
The goal had been lasting the night. Staving off sexual gratification. Keeping on task. The objective had been a personal matter. No one would ever know about it. Still, it mattered. Once one target was failed, didn’t that make it a little easier to fall short on the next one? And the next? And what about the aspirations following that?
Paul Henry grimaced. Failure did not feel right. Like a sliver caught beneath the skin. Festering. He couldn’t afford to be unsuccessful again. The ante had been upped considerably. The next goal was just coming into range. And he wasn’t failing that.
He moved his gaze to the chandelier above them. Very few candles still sputtered in their pools of wax. The room was dim. Quiet, except for the sound of their united breathing...always in tandem. As if what Eska said was true.
And they were mates.
The objective was not just to leave in the morning. That part was preordained. Infallible. Set in stone. The aim was to do it with his heart and mind intact. This entire episode forgotten, or – at the very least, disregarded.
That was the goal.
Eska murmured something. Stirred. Paul Henry’s fingers froze. He slowly lifted his hand from the hair strands across her back. Moved it to his side. Hoped she didn’t notice. Her head lifted. She turned to him and regarded him from a few inches away. A firestorm of heat whooshed through his chest. Grabbed his heart. Squeezed the organ until each beat shuddered as if hitting a cage. He told himself it was a physical impossibility, but that didn’t make it disappear.
Oh, shit.
He was in trouble.
A big pit of trouble.
And he dangled from the precipice, ready to fall in.
And that was too imaginative a construct. Completely unlike him. Utterly alien. He barely caught the surprise and dread from showing anywhere. Steeled himself. Sent a mental command. And then it got worse. His dick started to get interested.
Again?
What in the hell?
“What did you do to your eyes?” she asked.
Paul Henry tensed throughout his hips. Sent the order to stand down. Got ignored by his own physiology. He cleared his throat next. It was a wasted effort, as well. His voice was a rasp of sound. “When?”
“Just now.”
“Um. Nothing.” He told himself it wasn’t a true lie, and worked at keeping his gaze on hers. He didn’t even blink.
“They look deadened again.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” he responded.
Now...that was a lie.
“You are trying to shut me out, aren’t you?”
She lifted from him enough to put a finger to his chest, directly atop his heart. The damned thing stopped. Hers matched. He took a deep breath to restart things. She echoed that, too. And then she smiled.
His trouble pit grew deeper.
“Oh. Paul Henry. You are...so very young. And so...very stubborn.”
She traced an open heart atop his as she spoke. The organ responded with a series of erratic thumps, accompanied exactly by hers. He wondered how to hide that.
“I am not much younger than you,” he replied.
“Physically? Yes. Experience-wise...?”
She left it opened-ended. He knew better than to enjoin a debate with indisputable facts against him. He considered her for a long time. Decided on an offense. Shifted his hips suggestively against her.
“Did you really have to bring that up?” he asked.
“What?”
“That you are a corpse. Animated for now. But you will return to your grave come sunrise. Like all vampires.”
“Oh. Paul Henry. You are really good at that, aren’t you?”
“At what?” he parried.
“Attempting to alter a situation...with words.”
She shimmied against his groin. He almost groaned aloud. Inside his head he might as well be shouting orders. All of them disregarded. He had to try a different tack.
“Eska?”
“Yes?”
“How do you tell time around here?”
“We don’t have need of it.”
“Everyone has need of time.”
“When you are immortal, time is like being adrift on an ocean...atop a small raft facing a sea of infinity. It’s vast.”
“How do you know when to seek your coffin then?”
“I don’t have a coffin.”
“Why not?”
“I was not buried.”
“Oh. All right. How do you know when to seek the place containing dirt...from wherever you were changed, then?”
“I don’t have dirt.”
“All vampires have dirt. It’s a requirement of their existence.”
“I don’t.”
“Very well. Educate me. What do you have?”
“I would have drowned. Remember?”
“Are you saying you...what? Rest in water?”
“Exactly.”
“How? A liquid chamber? And, if so, why isn’t your skin all scaly and water-logged?”
She laughed. It was musical. Endearing. His ears filled with the sound. His eyes stung oddly. His throat closed off. And his heart did antics within his chest.
Holy shit.
His trouble pit was a yawning maw. Big. Black.
“Wherever you got your education on vampires...it appears to be lacking, Paul Henry.”
He glared at her with what he hoped was anger. Distaste. Nothing on his body agreed, however. And his groin was becoming a real issue. Uncomfortable as hell. He almost shifted, but that would just alert her to it.
“I have lots of water. The Bering Sea. All I require is a few drops. I carry enough in a vial. It’s in my purse. Would you like to see?”
“You’re telling me the means to destroy you? And giving me directions?”
“Is that what you want?”
He tried to stop the flood of sensation overtaking him. It crested like a wave over his shoulders. Crashed through his torso. Wrapped around his heart. Smacked into his gut. And then went lower. He pulsed against her loins. Felt her answering twinge. All of it wrong...but undeniable. He set his jaw. Considered her for long moments.
“I’m still leaving in the morning,” he finally replied.
“You are my mate, Paul Henry.”
He slid slowly into her, in the event she was tender. Trembled with remembered ecstasy as well as the new sensation. Started his withdrawal. Stopped for a moment.
“Just because you say something, does not make it true,” he said softly.
“There is nothing better than finding your mate. True love...is just the beginning.”
He sighed heavily. It disguised all sorts of other ills. Elation. Dismay. And the blasted need for her that he couldn’t seem to halt.
“I warned you not to say that word,” he finally answered.
Her smile was bright. It matched her eyes. There was a patina of gloss atop them, as if she was close to weeping. Her voice only validated that impression. “You cannot...fight it, my love.”
He gritted his teeth. Felt a stab in his lower lip. Disregarded it. Tried to drum up anger. At the very least, disgust. “I will be leaving...come sunrise. You have my word on it.”
“You will fail.”
He lowered a hand to her backside. Held her in place for his shove back into her. Heat surrounded him. Liquid enchantment. Pulsating sensation. He locked her to him with his hand. Rolled. Lifted from her for mobility. Waited a few moments while she regarded him with her unfathomably deep dark eyes.
“I got news for you, sweetheart,” he told her. “I never fail.”
And then he moved.
But he knew he was lying.